


a daughter twice over

by rey_of_sunlight



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Trauma, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 07:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19127668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rey_of_sunlight/pseuds/rey_of_sunlight
Summary: serana contemplates her family, her transformation at the hands of molag bal, and what to make of undeath.





	a daughter twice over

the garden is the thing that has changed the most. when serana was human, the months between when she would plant the seeds and when they would emerge seemed like forever. even when she grew past a child’s impatience, she would still pace the garden, longing for something she could see _happen_. 

what would seem like forever now? would anything? or would the course of each living thing seem no more than a blink? 

she expected the cold and the thirst, the claustrophobia of the coffin lid closing in on her compared to a four-poster bed, the nightmares of molag bal that came afterwards. but the garden had always been a refuge. her mother taught her how to know the mushrooms had enough shade, when the hanging moss was ready to be picked and powdered, how to ward off birds from the jazbay grapes. when the chanting swelled within the cathedral and left a lump in her throat, she would clear the moist dirt from the canis root. when the twentieth would roll around and she would see volkihar allies, aunts, cousins, all offered up – all ripped apart – and know her own day came ever closer, she would kneel by the mountain flowers and slowly breathe in their scent. 

three weeks ago, she spent a night in the thrall of molag bal, performing a calculated submission. oh yes, the old texts insisted that to become a daughter of coldharbour, one must submit completely, but all the old texts had been written by men, men who would never have to degrade and endanger themselves in the way she would. besides, she had been at her mother’s ceremony. serana had seen the hard glint in her mother’s eyes as she ascended to the font, how her mother had knelt before molag bal before the daedric prince had time to force her down. so serana too had come before the daedric prince with her head deliberately lowered, her neck deliberately protected from molag bal’s raking claws, and her face deliberately arranged in a mask of both filial and cultish piety. 

a bitter humour snakes through her when she thinks of those cultists, them and harkon alike. each dark priest insisted only he knew what it meant to glimpse the heart of domination, of power, of cruelty, that only he truly had the ear of the master they all served. after all their pontificating, they knew nothing of real sacrifice. serana knows the truth, now; that to understand the meaning of power, one has to be the one pinned helpless underneath it. 

when she awoke she rose shaking and alone from the icy flagstones. she was a daughter twice over now, she had to be, so where was the power that had been promised her? where was the surge of might, the speed, the eternal vitality pulsing through her? she knew only a parching thirst, one so overwhelming she barely had the presence of mind to drag herself to the great hall. and even when she had drank deep, of the blood hot and thick and salty and so like the haunches of beef she ate before (and yet not, her mind shrieked at her, not anything like those), the revulsion and confusion swelled so large that she could only stagger to a coffin and huddle inside. the darkness reminded her of how when molag bal touched her, she could see and hear nothing but him and his cloud of night, how she had no way to tell if time was passing or if she would spend eternity here, in this moment, being humiliated and violated and hurt in front of everyone she knew.

that night she barely slept. 

and now serana walks out here, beneath the moons, and looks down at the plants. on a whim, she picks a nightshade flower off its stalk and eats it. as a human, its poison was so strong that she could not even inhale its scent too directly when working with it. as a vampire, it tastes bitter, but does not affect her at all. she goes over to the sundial, the one her mother says she wants to replace, and pulls at one of the metal digits embedded deep into the cobblestones. it pops out as easily as a weed. 

the clang of her dropping it reverberates in the quiet of the courtyard. she could plant an acorn, and watch the entire lifespan of an oak tree. she could run experiments over days and weeks and months without ever pausing for rest, learn to bring life back to any dead thing she cares to resurrect. she could be mighty enough to explore ruins she has only ever read of. she summons lightning into her palm; not directing it at anything, just watching the crackles of power circulate. for the first time since her transformation, she tastes just what energy unending could be. 

another sound carries into the courtyard. her parents are still arguing. when she left the great hall to come out here, it was over who else to change. her mother wanted to establish a court, a network of allies and useful pawns that they could gradually swell and spread. harkon believed their power should be kept tightly locked within their bloodline, that abilities spread were abilities diluted. serana quenches her lightning and looks around at the garden. molag bal is still at the back of her mind. but so is the map of skyrim in her almanac. so is every undiscovered magical secret. so is every secret of the world, of other people, only a boat ride away.


End file.
